Too much of a good thing: Chaos of working apps overload

The very workplace apps intended to streamline tasks have sparked an app overload that's injecting chaos into business workflows and costing enterprises billions in lost productivity, according to a report by RingCentral, a provider of global enterprise cloud communications and collaboration solution. 

For communications applications, workers are using an average of four apps, with 20 per cent workers using six or more. This includes apps for phone calls, texts, web meetings, video conferencing, team messaging, and more. Sixty-nine per cent workers waste up to an hour a day navigating between myriad communications apps, amounting to 32 days per year. To counter this app fragmentation, 66 per cent workers want a single communications platform.

Used smartphone growth

The global market for refurbished smartphones grew 13 per cent year-on-year in 2017, reaching close to 140 million units. This was in contrast with the global new smartphone market that grew a scant 3 per cent last year, thus being outpaced by refurbished "second life" smartphones, according to latest research from Counterpoint's Refurbished Smartphone tracker. 

Refurbished smartphones are pre-owned smartphones that are collected, rejuvenated or repaired to be sold again in the market. Only 25 per cent of all pre-owned phones are sold back into the market. Of these, only some are refurbished.

“The slowdown in innovation has made two-year-old flagship smartphones comparable in design and features with the most recent mid-range phones. Therefore, the mid low-end market for new smartphones is being cannibalised by refurbished high-end phones, mostly Apple iPhones and, to a lesser extent, Samsung Galaxy smartphones,” research director Tom Kang said.